Hilary Clinton's Chocolate Chip Cookies

This is the recipe that launched a thousand debates. During the 1992 presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton submitted these chocolate chip cookies to Family Circle magazine’s first-ever Presidential Cookie Bake-Off against Barbara Bush’s recipe. The twist that sets these apart from a standard Toll House: two cups of old-fashioned rolled oats folded into the batter alongside the chips.

The oats change everything about the texture. They absorb moisture during baking and create a chewy, substantial cookie with a slightly nubby bite, somewhere between a classic chocolate chip and an oatmeal cookie. Without the oats, this would be a fairly standard drop cookie. With them, it’s something more interesting.

Vegetable shortening instead of butter is a deliberate choice. Shortening melts at a higher temperature than butter, which means the cookies spread less and hold their rounded shape better during baking. The tradeoff is flavor (butter tastes better), but the texture is more consistent and the cookies stay soft longer.

Beat the shortening and sugars until genuinely creamy, then beat the eggs in until the mixture is light and fluffy. This aeration step is what makes seven dozen cookies from a relatively modest amount of dough. Skimp on the beating and you get fewer, denser cookies.

Drop by rounded teaspoons for small, bite-sized cookies. Eight to ten minutes at 350F gives you golden edges with a soft center that firms up during the two-minute rest on the sheet.

Pro Tips

• Use old-fashioned rolled oats, not quick oats. Quick oats dissolve too much and you lose the texture
• Let the cookies rest on the baking sheet for the full two minutes. They’re too soft to move right out of the oven
• Rounded teaspoons, not tablespoons. These are meant to be small, one-or-two-bite cookies
• Store in an airtight container at room temperature. The shortening keeps them soft for up to a week

Variations

• Swap half the shortening for butter for better flavor while keeping the soft texture
• Add a cup of chopped walnuts or pecans to the batter with the oats
• Use dark chocolate chips instead of semisweet for a richer chocolate hit